


And If You Close Your Eyes

by Fightingandwriting



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Misunderstandings, Multi, Not particularily team cap friendly, Panic Attacks, Shuri is literally the coolest, Team Dynamics, Trans Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24669523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fightingandwriting/pseuds/Fightingandwriting
Summary: Look, Peter knows that being kidnapped is a bad thing.Honestly, he does. It’s not like he would ever think getting kidnapped is "cool" or "exciting," or anything along the lines of "holy fuck, Captain America and the rogue Avengers just kidnapped me, I am so awesome."Really. He would never think that.(Post homecoming au. Peter's kidnapped by the rogue avengers--they just want to talk, but one thing leads to another, and he ends up tied to an Ikea chair in a clearly stolen kitchen, still wearing his binder. There's a high school band overnight, a truth potion that goes wrong, and MJ and Ned, who are always ready to physically fight Captain America on a moment's notice.)
Relationships: Michelle Jones & Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark
Comments: 25
Kudos: 615
Collections: The Best Irondad/Spiderson Fics, The Best Peter Parker Whump Fics, The Best of the Best MCU Fics, ellie marvel fics - read





	And If You Close Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I wanted to mention real quick that while Peter Parker is a trans guy in this fic, I am not. I've done some research, and read some stories by trans authors, but neither of those are substitutes for lived experience. If anyone reading finds this story to be either incorrect or offensive, and has the energy to let me know in the comments, I would be beyond appreciative. Thanks!

Look, Peter knows that being kidnapped is a bad thing.

Honestly, he does. It’s not like he would ever think getting kidnapped is _cool_ or _exciting_ , or anything along the lines of _holy fuck Captain America and the rogue Avengers just kidnapped me I am so awesome_.

Really. He would never think that.

Besides, although this is kind of cool (completely fucking awesome) it does present several problems. The first of which is that MJ and Ned are going to be pissed.

Honestly, the two of them are what Peter’s most worried about right now. Aunt May thinks he’s at the high school’s band overnight, so she has no reason to be angry or worried for at least another twenty-four hours, and Peter really isn’t particularly scared of Captain America. Like, he _is_ , but in a “I really hope I haven’t disappointed him and disgraced my nation” kind of a way, not in a “oh shit he kidnapped me I’m going to die” kind of a way. The other Avengers are kind of terrifying (Black Widow, _holy shit he’s been kidnapped by Black Widow_ ) and...actually, the Winter Soldier isn’t nearly as scary as he had seemed earlier. He isn’t talking much, but he looks like he feels guilty about kidnapping Peter. He isn’t scary at all. Peter has decided that Hawkeye is basically a meme, and no one will ever be able to convince him otherwise. Sam Wilson could definitely kill Peter if he wanted to, but Peter’s getting the feeling he doesn’t. He just seems like a decent guy. It’s hard to explain.

So Peter isn’t scared of the rogue Avengers, despite the fact that they’ve just kidnapped him. Although, he is a little bit annoyed, because while this is awesome, he had been looking forward to the band overnight. It was at the high school, and had started a few hours ago. Peter had gone, and had been setting up his sleeping bag with Ned when they realized that neither of them had brought candy. After a brief argument with MJ, it had been determined that Peter would be the one to walk down to the seven eleven to buy the three of them an assortment of almond joys, Reese's peanut butter cups, and peppermint patties. (If MJ went, she would refuse to buy Ned’s peppermint patties. If Ned went, he would do the same, but to the almond joys.) So Peter had gone to the store, and really, it should have been pretty simple. Get the candy, pay, and walk out. Maybe stop at the bathroom first, which he did. Also which he regretted, because seven eleven bathrooms are an insult to humanity.

But while Peter was in the bathroom, someone had started shooting inside the seven eleven. So really, Peter had no choice but to throw the spider suit on (it was in the bottom of his bag. Honestly, was he supposed to leave it at home? What if something happened to it?) and to go out and stop the guy.

No one had been hurt, which was lucky. The shooter was some kid with a gun who wanted to see if he could get away with robbing the store, and he kind of freaked out the moment he saw Peter. Not that Peter had any sympathy. (Note to future criminals: looking scared does not make up for pulling a gun on innocent people.). Peter took the gun away, webbed him up, and that should have been that.

Except that the moment Peter climbed through the store window, _Captain fucking America_ was there, asking Peter--well, asking Spiderman--to come with them so that they could talk.

Peter did the natural thing; he started running as fast as he could. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t think Captain America was awesome, but when the guy who dropped a bridge on you a couple months ago asks to talk, running is the logical thing to do. 

Peter had made it a couple blocks before he noticed that he couldn’t quite breathe properly, at which point he remembered that he was still wearing his binder. Which was a mild issue, or possibly an absolute fucking massive issue, depending on what, exactly, Captain America wanted.

But the thing about having five _superheroes_ chasing you is that you can’t just stop running. So even though it kind of felt like he was dying, Peter kept going. And then Captain America threw his shield at Peter, and suddenly Peter couldn’t breathe at _all_ , and then he passed out.

So now he’s in what appears to be a kitchen. A weirdly normal-looking kitchen.

Apparently the wanted-criminals-with-superpowers have taken up residence in a house in the suburbs. Hey, Peter’s not going to judge.

(But seriously. Are they even still in New York?)

The Avengers--they really aren’t the Avengers anymore, but Peter isn’t sure what else to call them, so he’s sticking with that. The Avengers don't appear to be particularly good at kidnapping people. Black Widow and the Falcon are standing near Peter, but don’t seem to have noticed that he’s awake. Hawkeye is sitting on the ground, leaning against the a cabinet and polishing his bow. Peter can vaguely make out the sounds of Captain America and the Winter Soldier arguing in the other room, but even with his enhanced hearing, he can’t figure out what they’re saying. 

Peter’s hands are tied behind his back, but apart from that, he’s just sort of..sitting there, in one of their kitchen chairs. One of the kitchen chairs which looks like it came from Ikea. 

Peter decides to take stock of his situation. Captain America said that he wanted to talk, so Peter’s probably here because they want information. And _that’s_ kind of ominous, but Hawkeye is _whistling_ , so it’s hard to be too scared. Peter’s hands are tied together, but not particularly tightly, and if it weren’t for the fact that Black Widow was standing there, he could probably get away. The only real issue is his binder, which is...an issue. He can’t quite breathe properly, and this is the reason he hopes they let him go soon. He really needs to get this thing off. (In his defense, though, he does know better than to exercise while wearing it. That’s not on him. That’s on the rogue Avengers for chasing him halfway through Queens.)

Finally, Captain America and the Winter Soldier come back to the group, and join Black Widow and Falcon in ominously staring at Peter. Hawkeye is still whistling.

“Could you stop that?” Black Widow says, glaring at Hawkeye. Hawkeye freezes, and then mimes zipping his lips. 

Peter really, really wishes they would stop staring and say something. Jesus, haven’t they ever kidnapped someone before? They’re _so bad at this_. How have they still not noticed he’s awake? His EYES ARE OPEN. How have they not figured this out?

Another minute passes before Peter realizes he’s going to have to break the silence.

“Guys, what the hell?” he asks. They all start, as though they really _hadn’t_ noticed, and Peter is getting annoyed. “Seriously, have you guys never done this before? _You’re_ supposed to interrogate _me_. You’re not supposed to stand around awkwardly until I finally have to say something to break the silence. Unless that’s an interrogation technique.” Peter thinks about that for a second. “I suppose that would actually be kind of clever, but you haven’t even told me what you want to know!”

Captain America looks taken aback. Black Widow looks amused. Hawkeye glances up from the floor, then goes back to polishing his bow.

“We just want to ask you some questions,” Falcon says in his oddly calming voice.  
  


“Great,” Peter says. Captain America and Falcon exchange a glance.

“Are you in contact with Tony Stark?” Captain America asks. Peter leans back in his chair, and happily discovers that if he leans far enough, the front legs of the chair tip up. 

“Don’t _do_ that, you might--” Captain America looks at Black Widow. He clears his throat. “Anyway.”

“What happens if I don’t answer that?” Peter asks, tipping back on his chair again. He’s not trying to antagonize _Captain America_ , of course not, but it is kind of funny to see the look on his face when Peter does this.

The Winter Soldier answers his question. His voice is softer than Peter would have expected. “No one’s going to hurt you.”

“Why do you guys want to know?” Peter says, and almost tips the chair over. The way Captain America sucks in a breath makes it completely worth it. 

Black Widow glances at Hawkeye, who sighs, and stands up.

“Look, Tony’s offered us a pardon,” Hawkeye says. “He says that if we come meet him in his tower, we can sign a new version of the accords--edited, of course, we made a bunch of demands, and he met them, got rid of the goddamn raft provision--and then we’re good to do whatever we want.”

And yeah, that sounds familiar. Tony probably did mention it once or twice. “So...you want me to tell you if it’s a trap.”

“You got it,” Falcon says. Black Widow walks over to the fridge and gets a diet coke. Peter’s going to lose his mind.

“But how will you know if I’m telling the truth?”

There’s a pause. Then the Winter Soldier and Captain America are arguing again, this time speaking far too fast for Peter to understand, and then Captain America says that they need a minute, and the two of them walk out of the kitchen and into one of the other rooms. A few minutes later Black Widow follows.

Peter fidgets around in the chair, trying to find a position that might make it easier to breathe. He figures he’ll be alright for another hour or so. It hurts like hell, but he’ll be ok. Anyways, it’s not like there’s anything he can about it. To distract himself, he starts talking (Because seriously. He has an opportunity to talk to _Falcon_ and _Hawkeye_. He’s not going to miss out on that.)

“Weren’t you guys in Wakanda?” Peter asks, and immediately feels like an idiot. He needs to seem cool. Then again, his hands are literally tied together behind the chair and he’s been kidnapped, so maybe it’s ok if he sounds kind of lame. _They thought he was important enough to kidnap_ . _This is so fucking awesome._

“We were,” Hawkeye says, back on the floor, spinning an arrow around with his fingers. “But then Stark sent us the offer, and then we needed to talk to you, and so now we’re here.”  
  


“You know, this isn’t really what most people mean when they say ‘talking to someone’.” Peter points out. Falcon looks vaguely guilty.

“Yeah, sorry about that. We weren’t going to kidnap you, but…”

Peter appreciates that he uses the word _kidnap_. It feels honest. “You needed information,” he supplies. Hawkeye makes a noise of agreement. “So what happens now?”

“Well,” Hawkeye starts, standing up and stretching his arms. “Steve and Barnes argue for another three years, and then they’ll come to the agreement that’s been obvious since they started arguing, and then we’ll either sign the new accords or get the hell back to Wakanda.”

It takes Peter a minute to realize that ‘Barnes’ is the Winter Soldier. 

“What are they arguing about?” Peter asks. Another glance is exchanged.

“We can’t really...tell you,” Hawkeye says uncomfortably, looking at Falcon.

“Barnes still doesn’t really trust us,” Falcon explains. “He thinks if we tell you, we’re going to end up manipulating you or something.”

“Great,” Peter says. He tips the chair back again. 

“Don’t do that, you might--” Falcon stops when Hawkeye smirks. 

“Steve Rogers part two, right there.” Hawkeye looks at Peter. “Isn’t he basically Steve, except, like, without the super soldier serum and the abs?” 

Peter laughs, which sends sharp stabbing pains up his ribs. Maybe he overestimated with his hour. Something must show on his face, because Falcon’s expression changes from a glare to a look of concern.

“Are you ok?”  
  


Peter isn’t sure how to explain what’s going on, how to tell _Sam Wilson_ and _Hawkeye_ that he’s wearing a binder that he forgot to take off, that actually he’s very much not ok, that if they don’t let him go soon he’s going to be hurt pretty badly. So he shakes his head, and goes back to asking questions.

“Why is the Winter Soldier so worried about you guys manipulating me? Isn’t that good for you? Doesn’t he want answers?”

“Dude’s got a moral compass worse than Steve’s,” Hawkeye says. Falcon gives him a look. 

“Better.”  
  


“Worse,” Hawkeye says, walking over to the fridge. He takes out a box of lemonade. Like, a carton, a milk-gallon sized carton of lemonade that Hawkeye proceeds to drink right out of the container. He watches them while he drinks his lemonade. 

“Dude,” Falcon says, looking at Hawkeye. “Why,”

Hawkeye shakes his head, but can’t really defend himself, as he’s still drinking pink lemonade straight from the carton. 

Falcon just shakes his head. It’s all so fucking surreal that if it weren’t for the stabbing pain in his ribs, Peter would be fairly certain it was a dream. 

Hawkeye puts down the lemonade and makes a satisfied noise. Falcon continues to look disgusted, and Peter _cannot believe that this is real_.

Black Widow walks back in. “How is--” She turns to Falcon. “Did he justs drink that straight from the carton?”

Falcon nods his head. Black Widow glares at Hawkeye, who grins at her. She raises her eyes upwards, then turns to Falcon.

“I think they’re almost done,” Black Widow says. “Barnes doesn’t like it, but Steve’s not going to back down.”

“Shit, can you imagine what those two must have been like in the forties?” Hawkeye says, and Black Widow shudders.

“Imagine being the soldiers who had to share a bunk with them.” Now even Falcon looks sympathetic.

And suddenly Peter can’t breathe, and he’s not sure what the hell just happened, but he can’t _breathe_ , and his chest hurts so fucking badly, and _shit_ \--

And then it passes, and he manages to take a breath. And it still hurts, still aches in a way that makes him think this might be serious, but he can breath again.

“I mean, didn’t Tony’s dad know them?” Black Widow is saying. Ok. So none of them noticed. Peter isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or a very bad one.

And then Captain America and the Winter Soldier walk back into the room, both of them looking grim. 

Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Falcon seem to be waiting for something, and neither Captain America nor the Winter Soldier provide it, so the room is completely silent. Which is just awkward. Normally, Peter’s response to awkward silences is too break them, but there is no fucking way he’s going to say something when the honest-to-god _Winter Soldier_ is wearing that kind of expression.

“So?” Falcon asks tensely. Captain America and the Winter Soldier look at each other. 

“Buck, you sure?” Captain America asks. The Winter Soldier nods tersely.

“If he says yes.”  
  


“Right,” Cap says. “Alright. So--” He’s looking at Peter now. “So we’ve got this thing. This…” He looks at Black Widow for help.

“Truth potion,” she supplies. 

“Right, yeah. Except not really, because it’s not magical. Princess Shuri made it, it uses science, not magic, but same idea. Once you take it, you can’t lie. So…”

“You want to question me,” Peter says. “After making me take magical drugs that’ll make me tell the truth.”

Captain America nods, and glances at the Winter Soldier.

“You don’t have to,” Captain America says. “You can say no, and no one’s going to force you to take it.”

Hawkeye clears his throat. Captain America glares at him, which causes Hawkeye to put his hands up in a surrender motion. 

“Look, I’m not saying I want to force anyone to take a truth potion, but do we have, like, a backup plan?” Captain America continues to glare at him, and Hawkeye lowers his hands. “Sure, ok. Back to Wakanda.” 

So Peter has to make a decision. Which is unfortunate, because he’s bad at making decisions, and he’s really bad at making decisions under pressure, and two super soldiers and three Avengers staring at him definitely counts as pressure.

On the one hand, Peter’s seen way too many movies to be comfortable with this. At the moment, Mad-Eye Moody is screaming inside his head, _never drink anything given to you by a known enemy_ , which is a pretty compelling argument. He can’t quite remember all of the other times when a character has to take truth potion, but he feels like it never ends well. It’s definitely a common theme. So yeah, Peter’s inclined to say no.

But on the other hand, Peter’s running out of air. He’s spent enough time online (and being lectured by Aunt May) to know that he’s about to be in serious trouble, that the combination of the earlier exercise and the number of hours he’s been wearing this binder and the fact that it doesn’t quite fit in the first place--he’s going to have an issue. Permanent damage to his ribcage isn’t an impossible outcome. So maybe he should just say yes, get it over with, take the weird drugs and go.

Damn it, why did Ned have to like sci fi so much? Why did he have to have seen so many movies where this goes wrong?

Peter tries to think about what Tony would say. It’s actually not that hard: _stay still, wait it out, I’m tracking your suit, I’ll be there in five minutes._

Except Tony _isn’t_ here, and now that Peter thinks about it, that’s really, really strange. Tony’s definitely tracking the suit, and there’s no way in _hell_ there aren’t at least thirteen alarms that Tony’s programmed to go off if Steve Rogers comes into range. So Tony should be here, and the fact that he’s not means...means that either this house has really damn good security, or that the superheroes living in it have somehow managed to block the signal.

Peter wishes that he still had Karen in the suit. Unfortunately, Tony deactivated her about a week ago, saying that he wanted to update her. Apparently AIs don’t like being updated or something, and he didn’t want her in the suit while she was being programmed. (When he deactivated her, Tony had told Peter to stay out of the suit until he put her back. “Don’t get into any trouble without her.” Oops.)

Still, if they’ve blocked the signal, Tony will notice, because he’s paranoid and notices things like that. And if security is keeping him out, still, then it’s only a matter of time before Tony gets in. Unless Ant-Man is out there fighting him. 

“Wait, where’s Ant-Man?” Peter asks, and the silence that follows reminds Peter that this is not an answer to the question he was just asked.

“He’s in Wakanda, with Wanda,” Hawkeye says after a moment. He’s sitting on one of the kitchen counters, now. “There was some stuff they wanted them to do there.”

Peter nods. So Ant-Man isn’t fighting Tony right now. Which means Tony’s gotta be on his way, but Peter doesn’t know how long it will take him. And time just isn’t something Peter has, not when his ribs are breaking and it’s getting harder and harder to breathe.

But he really, really, _really_ does not like the idea of this. It’s not just the movies. It’s the idea of someone being able to ask him _anything_ , of not being in control of what he says, what he tells someone...and all they want to know is whether or not Tony’s telling the truth, but the idea of _truth potion_ is still so fucking terrifying that Peter isn’t sure he can handle it.

“Can I...think for a few minutes?” Peter asks hopefully. 

Captain America and the Winter Soldier share a look. 

“He’s stalling,” Captain America says, quietly enough that Peter shouldn’t be able to hear him, but hey. Enhanced hearing is awesome. 

“We can’t--Steve, this isn’t ok.”

“I know, but how long do you think it’s going to take for Tony Stark to show up here?”

“Steve, we’re not gonna do this.”

Steve sighs. “Buck--”

There’s a pause.

“Five minutes?” the Winter Soldier--Barnes, Peter thinks. Barnes’ voice is pleading. “Steve, please. Let him think for a few minutes.”

Steve doesn’t look happy about it, but he raises his voice again. “Take your time.”

Great. Time. Fabulous. 

Ok. So Peter needs to take his binder off, and that needs to happen _now_. 

“Can I go to the bathroom?” he asks. Falcon and Hawkeye share a look. 

“Sure, I’ll take you,” Hawkeye says, jumping down from the counter. 

“You sure this is a good idea?” Captain America asks quietly. “I mean--”

“Nah, Cap, it’s fine.” Hawkeye says, walking over to Peter and untying him. Peter waits a minute and then stands up, and shit, it’s nice to be standing again. He stretches, pretending not to notice the five superheros watching him warily. Somewhere in Peter’s head, a voice is still singing, _they think you’re a threat, Captain America thinks you’re a threat_ , and Peter has to force himself not to start grinning. 

He follows Hawkeye out of the kitchen and down a hall--a carpeted hall that is increasing Peter’s suspicion that the superheroes stole this house from some nice, innocent family--there are _pictures_ on the wall. Of a girl and a boy at various ages. Some of the pictures have a dog in them.

Hawkeye notices him staring. “We’re borrowing the house,” he says.

“I take it the owners don’t know.”

“They’ll be back in a week. It’s not like we’re going to break anything.” Hawkeye opens the door to the bathroom. Next to the sink is a water bowl, the kind for a dog.

Hawkeye turns around while Peter uses the toilet, which Peter appreciates. He also appreciates the fact that Tony designed the suit so that it didn’t have to be completely removed in order for Peter to use the bathroom. Makes things easier. Peter stands up, flushes the toilet, and reaches to pull the top half of his suit off. 

Peter’s barely moved his hands when there’s a gun pointed at him. And _fuck_ , Peter hates guns.

“Look, I’m really sorry about this whole kidnapping thing, but whatever weapon you’re reaching for, don’t.” Hawkeye’s voice is more serious than it has been the entire time Peter’s been here.

“I wasn’t--”

“Yeah, ok. Dude, Cap really wants answers and--and we all need them. I can’t go home until we get this sorted out. Just come back and talk to them, and then you can go.”

“I just--” Because Peter feels like he’s dying, thinks this actually might kill him, and he needs to find the words to explain that.

“Please,” Hawkeye says, which Peter thinks is kind of weird coming from the guy pointing a gun at him, but he understands the look in Hawkeye’s eyes. “I really don’t want to shoot you right now.” And Peter realizes for the first time how desperate these superheros are. Or, desperate is the wrong word, because he feels like that word doesn’t apply to someone with superpowers who’s being personally housed by the king of Wakanda, but the point is, they really want this to work. They really, really want to be able to sign Tony’s new accords or whatever it is, to be able to go back to their lives or maybe just Avengers’ tower. They want this to work. They really, desperately want this to work.

And Hawkeye has kids. A wife, whom he wants to see. And it’s not that any of that dramatically changes anything, but it does make Peter think that arguing here is not the move. That he will have to explain _everything_ if he wants to take this off, and that a wrong move will get him shot.

So Peter allows himself to be led back out of the bathroom (he washes his hands first, though. He’s not a barbarian.) and back to the kitchen, where everyone seems even more tense then they had been when he left. The walking hurts, but he tries to hide it. He’s not getting out of this. When they reach the kitchen, he sits back in the chair, and notices that no one bothers to tie him up this time. Maybe they figure that five superheros against one scrawny high schooler is good enough odds.

“So?” Captain America asks. Right. The truth potion thingy. Sorry-- “truth inducing drug.”

Peter does not want to say yes. He has _principles_ , and his principles go against taking weird truth inducing drugs offered to you by criminals. But his principles also go against suffocating and letting your ribs be crushed. MJ and Ned are going to be pissed that he’s been gone for so long, and if May doesn’t know that he’s disappeared yet, she will soon, and then she’ll be worried. Peter really hates making May worried. Or, more worried than usual. 

And Tony is undeniably, unequivocally not here. Peter knows that Tony has issues when it comes to protecting other people, that Tony’s put so many alarms on Peter’s suit it definitely counts as an invasion of privacy. There is no way in hell that Peter has been kidnapped by _Captain America_ and Tony doesn’t know. Unless, of course, the suit isn’t working. So either the suit isn’t sending a message to Tony and isn’t going to, or Tony knows Peter has been kidnapped and hasn’t come.

If Tony were able to rescue Peter, he would be here now. Since he’s not here, Peter decides that he should assume he’s on his own.

So he sighs, takes as deep a breath as his crushed rib cage will allow, and says yes.

“Great,” Hawkeye says, sounding relieved. “Good choice, dude.”

All of them, except for the Winter Soldier, look more relaxed. Even Black Widow looks less on edge. 

“Right,” Falcon says briskly. “Nat, you got it?”

“I put it in the fridge,” Black Widow says, walking towards it.

Falcon looks incredulous. “You...put it in the fridge.”

“Yeah,” Hawkeye says, “She labeled it and everything. Look, see?” Black Widow walks back over, carrying a plastic water bottle that does say, in sharpie, ‘TRUTH POTION, DO NOT DRINK’.

“That can’t _actually_ be truth potion,” Peter says. “That’s not possible.”

“It’s not,” Captain America says, glancing at the Winter Soldier, who’s gone back to the zoned-out-but-still-murderous facial expression. “It’s more like...what did Shuri call it? It blocks your brain’s ability to lie.”

Black Widow hands Peter the bottle. It looks like it has water in it.

“So I just drink this.” 

Captain America-- _Captain fucking America_ , Peter still doesn’t quite know how to process that--Captain America tells him yes, he should just drink it. And then Peter does.

At first, nothing happens, which is both anticlimactic and completely expected. It’s not magical: nothing’s going to happen until it actually reaches his bloodstream. So that leaves Peter sitting there, the rest of the Avengers staring at him.

“Did it work?” Hawkeye asks.

Peter thinks about that for a moment. “I’m a dragon,” he tests. “Nope, still not working.”  
  


A couple more minutes pass. Peter wonders, once again, if it’s possible to actually die of awkwardness. 

“My hair is bright blue,” Peter says. “Um, bananas are red. Well, sometimes they actually are. Does that mean it’s working?” The superheroes seem unimpressed. “Frogs have thirty two legs each,” Peter tests again. “Ok, yeah, still not working.”

Another couple minutes go by. Peter can just barely make out the last digit of the microwave clock, which gives him at least a small sense of how agonizingly slowly time is passing. 

“How long is this supposed to take?” Peter asks. Black Widow tells him that, according to Princess Shuri, it should be about ten minutes, total. So pretty soon.

After that, they all wait in silence, until Black Widow checks her watch and says it should be just about time. 

“Um, Trump is a good person. I’m glad vine got shut down. That new instagram update where they mess with your timeline is an improvement.”

“So is it not--” Falcon starts, and probably finishes, but Peter doesn’t hear the rest of it. 

Oddly enough, his first thought is that he feels betrayed, that he thought _Captain America_ didn’t do things like this. That yeah, sure, Black Widow and Hawkeye were superspies, and who the hell knows what was going on with the Winter Soldier, but Captain America was supposed to good. And Falcon had seemed decent, but still, he didn’t have Captain America’s aura of righteousness. Even after the fight at the airport, even after Siberia and betrayals and everything that had happened, Peter had always thought there was something trustworthy about him. Tony clearly did, too, made it obvious that he respected Cap even as he tried his best to hide it. So Peter’s first thought is of betrayal. And if he were able to think more clearly, he might decide that it’s not just that he feels betrayed, but he feels like Tony’s been betrayed, too: both of them had overestimated Captain America.

Because if Captain America really were one of the good guys, then he wouldn’t have done this. He wouldn’t have kidnapped Peter, wouldn’t have brought him to this obviously stolen house, wouldn’t have left Peter not able to breathe for hours, and he wouldn’t have done _this_ . Wouldn’t have given Peter this thing that hurts so fucking much, that’s making Peter feel like he can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t move, and and he wonders if they had known it would do this, if it was all a trick, so that--so that they could accomplish _something_ , although what it was, he had no idea, no idea what they get out of killing him, because this has to be killing him, has to be.

Maybe, he thinks desperately, this is some form of torture, maybe they knew this would happen, maybe the drug was supposed to just hurt and do nothing else. Maybe, any second now, it’s going to stop, and they’re going to start asking him questions--and god, if it would just stop fucking hurting, he would answer every single question, would do anything to make this go away.

Peter doesn’t know how long it lasts; all he knows is that it hurts more than he thought possible, and he tries desperately to focus on something, anything, but he can’t quite see and can barely think. There’s a voice in the background, a voice that makes Peter think both _trustworthy_ and _betrayal_ , and he doesn’t know why he thinks that or whose voice it is, but he tries to hold onto it, tries to focus on it instead of on how much everything hurts, and it still _won’t stop_. And he thought he would have been dead by now, but he’s not, and Peter can’t help but wish, desperately, that soon he will be, because there’s no other way out of this and he would give anything to just make it stop, and--

And it feels like years later, or maybe just minutes, but suddenly the voices are yelling louder, and there’s a new voice, one that comes without complicated thoughts of betrayal and trust and confusion, but that sounds like _home_ . And then someone’s saying ‘Peter’ over and over, and he thinks that they’re talking to him, but everything hurts too much for him to reply, and as Peter loses consciousness, dying or passing out, he isn’t sure, his last thought is _thank god_.

* * * 

  
  


Peter wakes up to the feeling that the ground is moving underneath him. He feels foggy, and everything still hurts, but no longer so much that he wants to die, so that’s an improvement. There’s a window next to him, and he can see clouds through it. His brain is still barely working, but he thinks this means he’s in a quinjet.

Peter can feel that he’s not wearing the spandex of the spider suit, and the pressure on his ribcage is gone. He’s too out of it to try to piece together how that happened, but he takes a few deep breaths, letting his lungs expand, finally, after so many hours of being constricted. There’s a sharp pain in his side; one of ribs must be broken.

He can hear voices. One of them is familiar and the other--as soon as Peter tries to focus on the other, he can feel himself starting to panic, and he doesn’t know why, but all of the sudden, he can’t breathe, and any second now it’s going to start hurting again, and--. 

And then a voice says, “Peter?” and suddenly, there’s a face in front of him-- _Tony_ , Peter thinks, but he can’t speak. Tony’s looking at him. The panic recedes a little. “I’m so, so sorry,” Tony says, quietly, and Peter can’t keep his eyes open, so he closes them. Tony must think he’s passed out again, because he stands there for a moment, and the walks towards the other end of the quinjet.

“What the fuck did you do to him?” Tony’s voice, low.

Captain America’s voice, which Peter now recognizes as the one that made him panic earlier: “We didn’t--we didn’t think that would happen.”  
  


“What did you think would happen, Rogers?” Tony asks, quiet but furious. It’s strange, Peter thinks, that Tony is so angry and yet talking so quietly. He must be trying to let Peter sleep. It’s so strangely thoughtful that, if he had any energy left, Peter would start crying.

Footsteps, and then Black Widow’s voice: “How old is he?”  
  


Hawkeye: “Oh, _fuck._ ”

There’s a pause, then Tony says, “Sixteen.”

There’s a strange noise. Peter manages to crack his eyes open, and sees that Captain America is leaning against the side of the quinjet, hands against the sides of his face.

“We didn’t know,” Captain America says, finally, softly. He glances over at Peter, who closes his eyes immediately. “We didn’t know--if he had been older, it would have worked properly. He would have been okay.”

“Yeah?” Tony asks. “Well, that makes it all better then, that you kidnapped and tortured my kid. As long as it was an accident.”

Peter opens his eyes again, in time to watch Captain America close his. “We didn’t know,” he repeats, his hands still pressed to the sides of his face, looking like guilt was a physical thing pressing down on him. “We tried to give him a choice--we didn’t realize what would happen.”  
  


Footsteps. Falcon turns away from the back window, comes over to join them. “Not much of a choice, though,” he says, quietly, then glances at Peter. Peter gets the sudden feeling that Falcon knows he’s awake. “Not when we were asking him to choose between breathing and torture.”

“We didn’t know that would happen,” Black Widow says, in a low voice. “We thought he was older. The drug--if he had been older, it would have worked properly. We didn’t even stop to consider that Spiderman might not be twenty-one.”

“Fuck that,” Tony says, something almost desperate in his voice. “What you thought would happen doesn’t matter.”

“No,” Hawkeye says. He looks down at his hands. “It doesn’t.”

And then everything spins and Peter passes out again, for real.

* * *

When Peter wakes up the second time, he’s in the tower. He can’t quite explain how he knows this--he doesn’t think he’s ever been in this particular room of Stark tower before, certainly doesn’t recognize it--but there’s something about it that tells Peter, undeniably, that he’s in Stark tower.

He sits up in his bed, and the person in a chair next to him looks up.

“Peter?” Tony says, and Peter just stares at him. 

“I’m so, so sorry,” Tony says.

Peter manages to open his mouth. His throat feels dry, and aches like he’s been cheering too loudly at a baseball game. “For what?” he manages, and Tony hands him a glass of water from the table next to him. Peter drinks it gratefully.

“For not getting there sooner,” Tony says, and he looks so sad, Peter can’t stand it. “For putting you in the middle of a fight that should have been between Rogers and me.”

Peter shakes his head, but can’t stop drinking water to respond. He’s so, so thirsty. When he finishes the glass, he looks up at Tony.

“Not your fault,” he insists, and Tony gives him a sad smile. 

“Anyway,” Tony says, “How do you feel?”  
  


Peter thinks about that for a second. “Like shit,” he says finally, his throat sore, his ribs aching, and Tony nods.

“Yeah, that makes sense. We didn’t want to give you any pain meds until you woke up, because we didn’t know how they would respond with that drug they gave you. But now that you’re awake, it should be safe to try some.” He moves to stand up, and Peter reaches out towards him.

“Don’t--” he says, and Tony sits back down, looking at him. 

“I’ll just text someone, then,” he says, after a moment. While he taps something out on his phone, Peter looks around the room. He turns to back to find Tony watching him.

Peter takes a breath as deep as his broken ribs will let him. “What happened?”  
  


“Where do you want me to start?” Tony asks. Peter thinks for a moment, and Tony sighs.

“Rogers and the rest of them kidnapped you,” Tony says. Peter nods. That much, he remembers. “They thought you would be able to tell them whether I was setting a trap, or whether the new accords were real. To verify that, they gave you a drug, which they thought would force you to tell the truth, but instead had--different effects.” Tony looks down at his hands, his jaw tight.

“Aunt May,” Peter says. “MJ, Ned. Where are they? Do they know--” he breaks off.

“MJ and Ned contacted me,” Tony says, shifting his chair to more directly face Peter. “When Rogers hit you with his shield, it disabled the alarms on your suit--or maybe they did that manually, though how they would have managed that, I have no idea.” Tony’s voice is careful, measured, forced calm. “I didn’t get any notifications that something had happened to you until MJ and Ned realized you weren’t responding to their messages and called me.”

Peter nods, and reaches for the water again, before realizing that he’s already finished it. There’s a pitcher next to the cup, and Peter awkwardly picks it up. His arms hurt. Everything hurts, if he’s honest with himself. Tony reaches over and pours the water for Peter.

“Thanks,” Peter says, and Tony nods. “Do--does Aunt May and MJ and Ned know what happened?”

“I called May while I was on my way to Rogers’ hideout.” Peter realizes, suddenly, how exhausted Tony looks. “She’ll be here any minute--she was here all night, I convinced her to go and get something to eat. I texted her when you woke up.”

And oh god, Peter had made Aunt May worry, even more. He looks down at the bed, white sheets and soft blankets, and fiddles with his hands. And _all night?_ What _day_ is it?

But there’s something Peter needs to get out of the way, first.

“I wouldn’t have agreed to--to take whatever their drug was,” Peter says quietly, not looking at Tony. “I mean, I’m not stupid, and I wouldn’t have risked betraying you like that, or whatever. But--I hadn’t taken my binder off, before I put on the suit. I couldn’t breathe. They said--if I agreed to just--I could leave, after.” When he says it, he can almost feel the tightness on his ribcage again, the pressure against his lungs.

At the words _betraying you_ , Tony had started.

“Peter--ok, let’s get this out of the way.” He looks Peter directly in the eyes. “You are in no way, at fault for what happened. That is solely on Rogers and his crew, and on me, for not getting there faster.” As Peter starts to object, the door swings open and Aunt May comes flying in. Her hair is disheveled, and she looks like she hasn’t slept in a week, even though it can’t have been more than two days since Peter last saw her.

“Oh my god,” she says, sitting down next to Peter in the empty chair. “Oh, Peter.” She looks like she’s been crying.

“I’m okay,” Peter says, because he is, mostly, and also he would say anything to make her stop looking like that. It doesn’t seem to work, though. “I’m sorry you had to be so--worried about me, but really, I’m okay, Aunt May.” At that, she really does start crying. Tony pulls out a handkerchief and hands it to her.

Aunt May wipes her eyes and looks at Peter. 

“For once in your life,” she says, “you have nothing to apologize for.”  
  
“I did put on the suit and take down a guy in a seven eleven,” Peter points out. May uses the hand not holding a handkerchief to wave that away.

“And you thought that was all you were going to do. Rogers--” Her voice tenses a little on the name. “--gave a full statement, explained what happened. He took full responsibility.”

Peter thinks that over. He doesn’t really blame Captain America--he believes that the guy really had no idea what his truth drug would do to Peter--but every time he thinks about Steve Rogers, it gets a little hard to breath.

“So, do you know why the drug did--that?” Peter asks, and for the first time since he woke up, he really thinks about it. About sitting in that kitchen and blinding pain and thinking he was really about to die, right there, and Steve’s Rogers’ fucking voice, talking and _not stopping_ even as Peter was _dying_ , and suddenly, Peter can’t breathe at all. The room fades out, disappears. 

“Peter,” Tony says, sounding a million miles away, “Peter, breathe with me,” and Peter tries, because it’s not like this is new. Not like he hasn’t had a panic attack before, but _god_ , it feels like shit.

And apparently, Captain fucking America is a trigger. God. Peter must have focused on his voice or something, when the drug kicked in. So now his brain has tied the two events together. Thinking about Captain America means thinking about that kitchen, that moment. It’s so frustrating, Peter wants to scream.

When he finally gets his breathing back under control, when the room has solidified again, Tony and Aunt May are both watching him. Aunt May looks tired, weariness etched into her face, and Peter feels so, so bad for putting it there. Tony just looks impossibly sad.

They sit in quiet for a few minutes, as Peter gets his breathing under control. God, he’s exhausted. He knows exactly how Aunt May feels. 

“I would rather you didn’t have to talk about it for a few days, at least,” Tony says, after a few more minutes, “but I know you’re not going to rest until you know what happened.”  
  


Peter nods. He needs to know. Won’t be able to move on until he does.

“I don’t fully understand it, myself,” Tony says. “But from what I can tell, Steve was telling the truth. That drug was supposed to prevent you from lying, but somehow, because of something to do with your age, it made you feel like--”

“Like I was dying, yeah. That part I remember,” Peter says, trying to sound flippant. Like maybe he can still make a joke out of this. It doesn’t seem to work. Tony and May just look more sad.

“So, there’s someone here to see you who might be able to explain this better,” Tony says, “but she wanted me to make it clear that you’re under absolutely no obligation to talk to her, now or ever.”  
  


“Oh,” Peter says, confused. He had been going to guess that it was MJ and Ned, but now he has no idea. “I mean--who is it?”

“Princess Shuri of Wakanda,” Tony says, and a moment after the holy _fuck_ comes the realization of why she would be here.

“Oh,” Peter says again. 

“Do you want to talk to her?”

Peter thinks it over for a moment, but there’s really nothing to consider. It’s not like--like he blames her, or anything. And while he would prefer to look a little less beat up when he meets her, she’s _Princess Shuri of Wakanda_ and she’s here to _visit Peter_.

“Sure,” Peter says aloud. 

Tony stands up. “Do you want us to stay? It’s a small room, but we could try to make it work.” He pauses. “We should go get MJ and Ned at some point, though, they’re asleep in one of the guest rooms. But I can wait until after you talk to Princess Shuri to do that.” He looks at Peter, the offer in the air.

“I’ll be ok,” Peter says. “You should go--when was the last time you slept?”

“Not important, kid,” Tony says, waving the question away. 

“Are MJ and Ned ok?”

“A little shaken up.” Something changes in Tony’s expression. “But they’re ok. Worried about you.”  
  
“We should get them,” Peter looks from May to Tony. “I--feel bad.”

“I can go wake them,” Aunt May says, standing up, and Peter is suddenly reminded of her hatred of hospitals, of white rooms and people she loves dying in the white sheeted beds. She looks so worried about him. He imagines her sitting there, in that chair next to Tony, waiting in this awful hospital room for so many hours before Peter woke up.

“Thanks,” Peter says quietly. Tony looks at him, a silent question. “I’m good alone,” Peter says. “Really, please go at least get more coffee, if you won’t take a nap.”  
  


Tony smiles slightly, forced humor. “Two days of no sleep is nothing,” he says, but he stands up, anyway. “If you’re good here, though, I will go get some more coffee.” Peter nods, and Tony and May walk over to the door. When Tony opens it, there are two people standing there

“We were just heading out,” Tony says to them, as Peter does his best not to stare. “But we’ll be back in a few minutes.”  
  
“Thank you,” the guy says, strangely formal for the little hospital room.

The door closes behind May and Tony. Peter still can’t seem to stop staring. 

“Sorry,” he says, “but you’re Princess Shuri. You made, like, literally all of Wakanda’s tech. I just--” Peter looks down and then back up again. He cannot believe this. Shuri. Of Wakanda. In his hospital room. And the guy next to her--”And you’re the _King of Wakanda._ Oh my god. And you’re here.”

Damn it, what _is_ it with Peter and not making good first impressions? Why does he keep meeting cool people while either tied to a chair or stuck in a hospital bed?

The actual literal King of Wakanda nods. Peter thinks he makes even his nod seem royal _._ Shuri-- _Princess Shuri of Wakanda--_ looks down at her shoes. Her brother nudges his shoulder into her, and she looks up, straight at Peter.

“I came to apologize,” she says, a slight accent to her words. “I take full responsibility for what happened, and I am so sorry, for what I have caused you.”

Peter can’t respond for a moment. Holy shit. Princess Shuri of Wakanda. Standing there. Apologizing to him. He feels like his brain is short-circuiting. He thinks he manages to nod, mutely. She bites her lip, looking nervous, and there’s something strange about that, the idea that _Princess Shuri of Wakanda_ could have anything to be nervous about here.

It’s enough to make Peter’s brain come unstuck. “I--have a question,” he says, as his tongue becomes capable of forming words again. He needs to know more than what Tony had been able to tell him. “Why did the, the truth drug thing, why did it do--” He tries to keep his breathing steady, running through every trick he had learned after homecoming to prevent panic attacks.

Shuri seems to get what he means, even though he hadn’t finished his sentence. She nods, looks down at her shoes again, and then back up at Peter. “How old are you?”  
  


It’s the same thing that seems to keep coming up. “Sixteen,” Peter says. “Why?”  
  
Shuri looks at her brother, who shakes his head slightly. She turns back to Peter “The drug was designed to work on someone twenty-one or above. It has to do with brain development, and--I suppose that part does not matter. I should not have trusted a--I should not have trusted Captain Rogers with it.”

Peter thinks about that for a moment. “So why...why did being sixteen make such a difference?”  
  


Shuri looks surprised at the question, but explains something about brain development, and how brains aren’t actually fully formed until someone’s twenty or twenty-one, which is a cool thing Peter hadn’t known before. Apparently, because he didn’t have a fully formed brain or whatever, the thing the drug was supposed to target--Peter’s ability to lie--got mixed up with some other stuff, and the drug accidentally ended up making Peter think he was in pain and dying. Fun stuff.

“So there’s a chance Captain Rogers--” it’s not his fault that calling Captain America by his actual name makes Peter feel cool-- “genuinely thought it would do what what it was supposed to?”

“I’m sure he did,” Shuri says. “Steve is not a bad man. This situation--I should not have created that drug, and I should not have given it to him.” She glances at her brother again. This time he gives her a slight nod. “I take full responsibility for what happened.”

Peter shakes his head. It seems unfair, for her to blame herself, given that all she had done was try to create something new. 

“I could have mentioned to Cap that I’m sixteen,” Peter offers. They both look confused. “Or like, he could have not kidnapped me in the first place.” Shuri glances at her brother, than back at Peter, as though she doesn’t understand him. “I guess what I’m saying is that it doesn’t seem fair for you to blame yourself for what happened.”  
  
T’Challa clears his throat. “We have rules about what we should and should not create for a reason,” he says, his voice deep and solemn. “Princess Shuri should not have made this. The responsibility rests on our country’s shoulders.”

Shuri glances at the Starkphone lying on Peter’s bedside table, then reaches into her pocket and pulls something out. “I brought this, as an apology,” she says, and T’Challa shakes his head slightly. “I know it does not--make up for what happened, but I thought you might appreciate a better phone.” It looks like something out of Star Trek. She hands it to him, and this is an _insane_ moment. Peter doesn’t even know how to deal with this. What the fuck is his life.

Shuri says something to her brother in a language Peter doesn’t recognize, and then apologizes to Peter again. “We should let you rest,” she says, and she and her brother start to walk out. When she reaches the door, Shuri hesitates.

“There is...one more thing,” she says. “The fight at the airport, in Germany? We have the footage, from my brother’s suit, and--”

“ _Shuri_ ,” says the guy who is the actual king of a small country.

“Brother, I just want to ask.”

“This is ridiculous,” King T’Challa says. “I will wait outside.” He looks at Peter again. “On behalf of my country, I would like to apologize again.” He nods at Peter, and then steps out into the hallway. Shuri takes a breath.

“I am sorry, to take up more of your time right now, but I just wanted to know--in the footage, you said that Tony Stark told you to take down Captain America by ‘going for the legs’--did he really say that, or…?” She looks at him. It takes Peter a moment to process that.

“Uh, no,” he says, after a moment, a little sheepishly. “I was just quoting that one vine.”

Shuri breaks out into a grin. “I _knew_ it,” she says. “My brother did not believe me, but I knew it. My number is programmed into that phone. If you can forgive me for what I have caused you, I think we would be good friends.”

* * *

  
  


After Shuri leaves, Tony and May come back in, MJ and Ned behind them. As Peter and MJ and Ned talk, Tony says something quietly to Aunt May, and then leaves the room. A few minutes later, Peter manages to talk May into going and getting some sleep, as well.

“I still can’t fucking believe it,” MJ says, sitting down on the end of Peter’s bed.

Ned shakes his head in agreement and sits down in one of the chairs. “Like, who would have expected that of _Captain America?_ ” He looks at Peter. “I’m going to throw out all of my Cap t-shirts,” he says solemnly. MJ hits him on the arm.

“C’mon, dude, you know that’s terrible for the environment.” She looks directly at Peter, just as solemn as Ned had been. “We’re going to _deface_ his Cap t-shirts.”  
  


Now that they’re here, everything feels better. “I can’t believe I missed the band overnight,” Peter complains. It feels good to be upset about that, about something so relatively small. Just a high school band overnight. Nothing more.

“Yeah,” Ned says wistfully. “We missed out on so much drama.”  
  
“You guys didn’t stay?”  
  
“Well,” MJ says, “when _someone_ went missing literally one hour in, it kind of killed the vibe.”

“Sorry about that,” Peter says. He can’t seem to stop smiling. “I’ll try to have a talk with Captain America about appropriate times to kidnap and torture underage superheroes. Namely, about not doing it on the literal best night of the year.”

Ned nods. “He really should be more respectful of your time.”  
  
“I mean, for god’s sake,” MJ says. “Oh, also, quick question: did you want Tony Stark to kill Captain America?”

Peter sits straight up. “What? No!”

“Ok, good,” MJ says, flopping back against Peter’s bed.

“What the fuck?” Peter turns to Ned, who grimaces.

“You were so upset after Siberia, so we thought you probably didn’t want a repeat of that,” Ned says, sounding apologetic, which honestly makes Peter nervous.

“Well,” MJ says, still sprawled across the end of the bed. Peter’s legs are trapped under her. “We figured, if you wanted Stark to kill Captain America, it could wait until you woke up.”  
  
“We also thought there was a possibility you would want to kill Captain America yourself,” Ned puts in. MJ nods emphatically.

“That, too. We didn’t want to take that option away from you.”  
  


“I do not want Captain America to be killed,” Peter says loudly. They both look at him.

“Well, good,” MJ says, sitting up. “Because he wasn’t.”  
  
Sometimes Peter hates his friends. “So why,” he asks, “Are you bringing it up?”

“Oh, right.” MJ shakes her head, as if to clear it. “Yeah, we totally stopped Iron Man and Cap from killing each other.”  
  


“I don’t think Captain America would have tried to kill Tony Stark,” Ned says thoughtfully. “He seemed like he felt pretty guilty.”

“Yeah, he honestly might not have fought back.” 

“What do you mean,” Peter asks, closing his eyes. He’s not even sure he wants the answer. “That you stopped them from killing each other?” 

“It was my idea,” MJ says proudly. “Stark was going in to talk to Captain America, and we were trying to figure out how to make sure that he didn’t actually attack him right there--”

“He would have,” Ned adds. “Like, holy shit, dude, I’ve watched footage from basically every Avengers battle, and I’ve still never seen Iron Man as furious as he was just then.”

“Yeah.” MJ’s quiet for a moment.

“So?” Peter prompts.

“Right!” MJ turns to face Peter. “So we walked into the room and sat down.” 

“Said we were collateral damage,” Ned says. “Like, if they fought. We were there, and weren’t leaving. So they couldn’t destroy each other, because they would have killed us, too.”

Peter presses his the sides of his hands to his nose “You guys walked into a room with two superheroes who wanted to _kill_ each other,” he says, eyes closed. “And told them that you were _collateral fucking damage_ if they fought. And thought that would be enough to keep you alive.”  
  
“I mean, it was,” Ned says.

“Also,” MJ adds, “They didn’t want to kill each other. Iron Man wanted to kill Captain America.”

“For the love of god,” Peter says. Both Ned and MJ look pleased with themselves. His fucking friends. No healing factor. No powers. Just determination.

He loves them.

“Oh, also, we told them you had a list of demands,” MJ says suddenly, sitting up.

“Oh yeah!” Ned grins. “We said we would bring the the full list later. But they--the avengers and Cap and Stark--they didn’t seem to believe that you actually had made a list, so we had to make up a few to prove it.”

“Wait, how could I have made a list of demands if I was passed out at the time?”

“Oh, yeah.” MJ frowns. “We didn’t think of that.”

“That must have been why they were skeptical,” Ned says.

Peter grins, despite himself. “So, what did you tell them my demands were? Also, what made you guys think I’m in any position to demand anything?”

“Oh, Cap would probably do anything for you right now,” MJ says thoughtfully. “I think he feels terrible about what happened. The others, too.”

“They should,” Ned mutters.

“Anyways.” MJ brings her hands together. “Your demands. We said we wanted two of them to speak at a pride event, although we didn’t say which one, because we thought we would wait for you on that.”  
  
“Huh,” Peter says. He thinks about that for a moment. It’s a nice idea. Maybe Spiderman would make an appearance at pride, too. It is almost June, after all. “Alright. What else did you say?”  
  
MJ and Ned glance at each other.

“Yeah, so it was kind of hard, after that,” Ned says. MJ nods.

“We really had no idea what you would want to ask for.”

Ned turns to Peter. “I talked her out of making Clint Barton bake you brownies.”

“Thanks,” Peter says. “I feel like that would have been crossing a line.”

MJ bites her lip. “But, anyways,” she says, and then stops. Peter tries not to feel too apprehensive.

“What did you do?” he asks. 

“We didn’t ask,” Ned says, before MJ can respond. “Cap offered.”

Peter stares at him. “What, exactly, did he offer?”  
  


“Ok, no I totally asked,” MJ says, only a little sheepish. “He’s going to go on Fox news and go off on one of the commentators. You get to pick which one.”  
  


Peter laughs so hard his broken ribs start aching again, but he doesn’t care. He’s here, with MJ and Ned. He made it through. He’s not sure everything will be ok, but it’s starting to seem like it might.

* * *

Peter wakes up, and the room is quiet. It’s dark. Next to him, he can see May asleep in one of the chairs. He’s thirsty, but he doesn’t want to wake May, so Peter gets out of the bed as quietly as he can and slowly tiptoes over to the door.

He walks down the hallway in just his socks. The windows are all dark, although Peter really has no idea what time it is, whether it’s late at night or early in the morning. He makes his way over to the elevator and presses the button, everything strange and eerie in the dark.

The elevator moves down the stories slowly. When Peter, he makes his way towards the Stark tower kitchen. The lights are on, and Peter can hear voices. When he finally reaches the door, he just stands there for a minute, watching. The tiled floor is cold through his socks.

All of the Avengers are there. Tony and Hawkeye and Black Widow are sitting at the kitchen table, a bottle between them and a glass in each of their hands. Over at the counter, Falcon and the Winter Soldier are talking, while Captain America sits next to them and stares into the distance.

“--had no idea he was so young,” Hawkeye--no, Peter thinks. In this kitchen, he’s Clint. He’s speaking quietly, looking down at the glass in his hand. “Shit, Tony-- _Sixteen_ , that’s like…”

“Six years older than your kids,” Tony says in a low voice. He doesn’t sound angry anymore. Just tired. Peter wonders why he’s here. He wonders if he should feel betrayed, that Tony is drinking with the people who had kidnapped him only a few days ago. Tony’s both very good and very bad at holding grudges. “Yeah, I know.”  
  


Natasha finishes off her drink, and reaches for the bottle. Tony turns to her.

“What’s up with you?” he asks. “It’s not like this is the first time you’ve tortured someone.” There’s surprisingly little bite to his voice. Natasha looks at him, her gaze level then dropping down to her hands.

“Low blow,” she says, “but I deserve it.” She takes a drink, long and slow. “First, no, I don’t make a habit of torturing people.” She’s quiet for a moment. “But yeah, I’ve hurt people before. And this is how I deal with it.”  
  
“Getting wasted in Tony’s kitchen?” Clint asks wryly, and takes a drink, himself. 

“Fuck it,” Tony says, staring at the table. “Fuck it, how am I doing this? Sitting here and drinking with you guys like _nothing happened_ \--you know he can’t even say Steve’s name? He had a panic attack just fucking thinking about what you guys did--” 

“What would you rather do?” Natasha asks quietly. In response, Tony pours himself another glass of whatever they’re drinking, and downs it in one go. And suddenly, Peter understands something.  
  


Tony hasn’t forgiven them, and he probably never will. But the thing is, Tony’s never going to forgive himself, either. For so many things, obviously, but also for this, for not getting to Peter in time, for being the reason it all happened in the first place. Tony blames himself almost as much as he blames Natasha and Clint and the rest of them, it’s all there, in the cup and the bottle and the far-off look and the smooth motion when he raises his glass to drink.

  
  


They’re quiet for a moment. 

“I didn’t know Spiderman was trans,” Clint says, after a moment. Tony looks up.

“What, Barton, you’re going to have a problem with that now?” he asks.

Clint rolls his eyes. “Jesus, Stark, what kind of guy do you think I am?” He’s quiet. “I just wish we had known what was going on. I mean, for fuck’s sake, I pointed a _gun_ at him when he tried to take that thing off, I thought he was reaching for a weapon or something.”  
  


Peter winces a little, at the memory. He’s been Spiderman for over a year, and he still hasn’t gotten over how much he hates guns, how much it fucking sucks to have someone point a gun at him and be willing to use it.

  
“You don’t have to say ‘that thing’,” Tony says tersely. “You can call it a binder, the word won’t kill you.”  
  


“Didn’t know what it was called,” Clint says mildly, taking another drink.

“And he’s sixteen fucking years old,” Tony mutters. “Don’t know what you thought a high school junior was going to do to five fully trained superheroes.”

“He’s also Spiderman,” Falcon--Sam Wilson--says quietly from the counter. He, the Winter Solider, and Captain America had all been silent until now, listening .

Tony doesn’t respond.

“Are things better, these days?” the Winter Soldier asks. Tony whips his head around to look at him.

“What do you mean?”

The Winter Soldier--Barnes--shrugs. “Wouldn’t have wanted to be a trans sixteen year old in the forties.”

Tony sighs.

“Things still suck,” he says. “But they’re definitely better than they were then. You speaking at that event might be a step in the right direction.” He looks down at his empty glass, but doesn’t refill it. “At the very least, it might make it easier for him to be on the same team as you.”

_The same team_ \--holy fuck, the accords must have been signed. Though how Tony calmed down enough to negotiate with Captain America, when he had looked ready to kill the other guy earlier, Peter doesn’t know. 

“That event,” Falcon--Sam Wilson--says, mouth twitching, and Tony looks at him.

“What?”  
  
Sam looks down, amused. He drums his fingers against the countertop. “Just thinking about that list of demands.”  
  
“His friends are insane,” Clint says, looking up. “Like what the fuck were they thinking with that collateral damage thing?”

Behind the door, Peter smiles, feeling strangely proud of his ridiculous, determined, human friends.

He shifts, slightly, and he thinks Captain America sees him. From the counter, he gives Peter a half smile, apology and request for forgiveness all wrapped up in one careful expression. He looks tired. And sad, and terribly, desperately guilty. Looking at him is still enough for the panic to swell up in Peter’s chest, memories of fear and pain and dying all coming back, but for now, it’s not overwhelming. For now, it’s something Peter can push back down, move on from.

He’s not going to be able to move past this, not for a while. But he thinks of the future, of the avengers being whole again, of fox news and MJ and Ned ad everything that could come next. And for now, Peter threads his fingers through the door handle, and pushes it open.


End file.
